I was going to use this post to make some comments about Mr. Hypocritical but I decided against it because all Americans should educate themselves on his inconvenient reality. These sunflowers are American Giants and the package said they can grow to be 8-14 feet. The tallest one there comes in over seven as of today.

As for my garden, the storm we had a few weeks ago really did some damage. Most of the tomatoes were blown down, cage and all, and many had snapped branches. However, none were uprooted and there is red out there and I've already picked about a half dozen tomatoes. Since none were uprooted, I am optimistic for a good bounty.

Given my minimal carbon footprint, I feel good that I have offset what I emit. Aside from the garden and flowers, the air conditioner that cools the main floor of the house is still wrapped in the winterizing plastic!

Here is another picture I took along Kings Highway 15 near Seeleys Bay, Ontario two days ago. If I do the math right, that works out to about US$3.77 gallon.

I didn't hear a lot of griping about gas prices when I was there but things in general are more expensive. The gas price I saw is typical throughout Ontario according to ontariogasprices.com. Other prices I saw were a dozen eggs cost about $2.10. A 1/2 gallon (2L?) of milk was $2.45; Canadian of course. The local exchange rate was 2%; 98 US cents == $1 Canadian. Officially it's .955/1 according to x-rates.com. I just paid $1.81 for a 1/2 gallon of milk here and I rarely buy eggs when they are more than $1/dozen.

I found out that the Kingston area of Ontario has a doctor shortage . According to Wikipedia, the metro population of Kingston is about 152,000. With 20,000 without a doctor (are they uninsured then or just completely without any means to get medical treatment?) out of 152,000, that's 13.15% of the population. If we take the generally agreed upon number of uninsured in the US at 40 million, that works out to be 13.33% here. I don't know if 'doctor shortage' = 'uninsured' but I do know that if there is a doctor shortage, the amount of uninsured people is not the main healthcare issue that needs to be addressed.

I was not totally without Internet access. The local library, open three days a week, had Internet so I was able to get online for about 20 minutes one day just to check email and the news back home. There was a coffee shop that had wi-fi but it had closed down within the past week; just my luck. The nearest McDonald's to where I was, about 20km, did not have wi-fi.

When I crossed back into the US, at the line where the car is supposed to stop at the border checkpoint I saw some apparatus that looked a little like a cell phone tower except it had large gray squares, maybe 18 inches square, about 6 on each one, one at each divider between the lanes at ground level. I wonder if they are radiation detectors. I decided not to take a picture of one because while I am sure the Homeland Security folks are really nice and friendly, I didn't feel like spending an afternoon with them, lol. Whatever they were, I've never seen anything like them. We passed through after a few questions from the border guard, as usual and, as usual, it felt great to cross the border back into the US.

We stopped at the Ft. Drum exit off 81 to gas up ($3.06/gal) and grab a quick bite at McDonald's. Aside from the welcoming site of American flags and listening to American radio stations, I saw a trio of our bravest from the 10th Mountain Division entering the McDonald's. Even though I was still 250 miles from my house, I knew I was home.

...well not anymore. I returned to the good ol' USA today after a few days in Canada. I came home to no phone service in my house. The storm on Tuesday must have knocked it out. Of course, this being Friday evening, the earliest the phone company can come out is Tuesday. Luckily, it appears nothing else major was affected by the storm except maybe my garden. I took a quick look at it and it, well, looks, oooook, but I can see that it did take a beating. Nothing appears uprooted or totally destroyed but I'll find out for sure tomorrow.

I'll have another post in a day or two about my trip and maybe post a few pictures.

For some odd reason, my alma mater decided to change their secondary logo, pictured above, and they must have used some art-school dropout (excuse the redundancy) to design the Panther logo pictured above. Below is the most recent panther. I never thought it was great either but at least it's clearly a cat.

I'll probably be taking holiday from blogging for the first half of July. Stay tuned, though, as I may sneak a post or two in depending on my mood.

Remember to fly your flags and read the Declaration of Independence on the 4th.

Here's the link to the post that explains what I did last July 4th. As for this one, I'll probably just go see the fireworks and spend time with the family, aside from, of course, flying the flag and reading the Declaration of Independence. I usually read through it two or three times a year including on the 4th. I think everyone should do the same.

...and making beer is too. The local homebrew store I buy my stuff from recently raised their prices, significantly. For example, the kit to make a batch of porter, which I just made (Pat, email me if you want to sample it when it's ready, it should be ready by next week) went from $34.95 to $41.95. Yowza! Considering the average yield is around 50 12 oz bottles, that price increase equals about 14 cents per 12 oz. That may not sound like a lot, but imagine the outcry if gasoline or even milk went up by that increment in a two month span!

I saw another coyote just beyond the property line of my yard a few days ago. it was about 3 pm and I was in the kitchen with the patio door to my right and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a deer. I looked and it was no deer. It was a coyote. It was too big to be a fox but it didn't look as big as the coyote I saw in the same spot in 2005. It wasn't a dog either and I could tell it didn't have a collar.

As I did the last time, I grabbed my camera and by the time I got out the door, he ran into the woods - the same spot as before. Undaunted, I ran outside to about 10 yards from the spot he was standing but saw nothing. However, I did hear a flurry of activity from the birds, akin to how they chirp when my cat is about. The cat was inside this time so they were either chirping at the coyote or another animal.

On a side note, about two weeks ago, I noticed bite marks on my cat. I assumed it was from a dog or larger cat. I'm wondering if my cat has seen the coyote up close; something I've been unable to do. I just want to get close enough to snap a photograph.

Since Google is unwilling to honor US veterans on Veteran's Day or honor those on Memorial Day who have given their last full measure of devotion so that Google can choose to ignore them, I have an idea for Google's new logo:

I know I'm a little late but 1) I'm busy and 2) I am not an artist. I would like to make an animated logo where 'Google' transforms to 'Goebbels' but I haven't the skills to do it. I need to work on the B's yet. I tried to make them lowercase but they didn't turn out right.

Anyway, here is a link to some very dignified design recommendations. Given that Google hires only the best talent, there is no excuse for such perfidy. Again, these are very good and very respectful.

A quote from the link (from Google): "We wouldn't want to create a graphic that could be interpreted as disrespectful in any way."

Google, your PR people are worthless pieces of trash. Look at those submitted logos. Tell me you can't create graphic as tasteful as any of those. I hope the numbnuts at Google realize that their bullshit is protected by the First Amendment.

For the record, I use Alltheweb my primary search engine and Ask.com as my backup. Google is usually choice number three and, luckily, I usually find what I when using Alltheweb and Ask.com.